Stoicism Today Is Relocating by Gregory Sadler

As the editor of Stoicism Today, I’m very pleased to announce that, after considerable planning and preparation, the Stoicism Today blog is officially moving to this new virtual location. This decision wasn’t taken lightly – after all, it is quite a bit of work to move an established blog! – but there are some compelling reasons for making this shift, which I’ll discuss below.

First though, I’d like to stress that, although the aesthetics of the blog are somewhat different on this new site where it is hosted, Stoicism Today remains the same blog. All of the previous entries over the last four years have been migrated over to this new location. In fact, for most of them, all of the discussions carried out in the comments have been imported as well. The continuity extends to the staff as well – it’s still myself as editor, and Tom McConnell as editorial assistant – and the input we get from the editorial committee.

Why change anything then? Why move to another location? It is really a matter of exercising prudence, when it comes down to it. The Stoic community has been growing in numbers and in the complexity of its interconnections worldwide over the last decade, especially in the last five years. “Stoicism Today” – both as the blog itself, and as the loose organization that originated and supports Stoic Week, Stoicon, and a number of other initiatives – has also been developing in the process.

The project group is assuming a more formal and official structure as an organization, Modern Stoicism, a charitable incorporated organization based in the UK, with an associated core group (the “steering committee”) worldwide who work out decisions by consensus – the people who you’ll see listed on the “Modern Stoicism Group” page on this new hosting site.

There are a number of main activities this group is routinely involved in. The Stoicism Today blog is one key part of that. You see members of the group occasionally contributing pieces to the blog, but they actually do considerably more than that behind the scenes, advising me as the editor, sending good prospects for entries my way, and collaborating to publicize events and classes. The annual Stoicon conference itself is one prime example of that, but we also strive to promote other events where people can learn about, discuss, and practice Stoicism. The two flagship online classes – the Stoic Week class, and the Stoic Mindfulness and Resilience Training (SMRT) – are another main area, involving a lot of work and collaboration (the lion’s share of which falls upon Donald Robertson).

As the community of people interested in Stoicism has built up online (with a lot of healthy connections to face-to-face meetings, events, and groups), it hasn’t just grown in sheer numbers of people involved, or even the number of different venues – it’s also a matter of the complexity of the overlaps, interconnections, shares, and so forth between people, organizations, and forums where interactions take place. Members of the “Stoicism Today” (or “Modern Stoicism” – whichever you like) project group are quite often, if not at the center of things, certainly playing significant roles. You’ll also notice quite a few of the guest contributors to Stoicism Today similarly involved in the contemporary Stoicism community.

One main goal is for Stoicism Today/Modern Stoicism to remain just as centrally involved in the ongoing – and very exciting – activities, conversations, and developments of the larger contemporary Stoic community. So, it was decided by a good deal of conversation, thought, and eventually consensus, that now would be a particularly propitious time to reorganize and restructure matters.

In some cases, this also involves consolidating matters that were originally based on different online platforms. And that’s precisely what we’re doing in this case. You’ll now be able to read the Stoicism Today blog itself on the same site that you’ll use to participate in the Stoic Week or SMRT courses, or to check for events, or look for resources – or even (hint, hint) to donate and support the ongoing work of the organization.

To bring this last entry here to a close, on behalf of Stoicism Today, I’d like to express a bit of gratitude. Thanks to the University of Exeter for hosting this excellent and needed online publication from its inception to now! Thanks to the previous editor, Patrick Ussher, and to Tom McConnell, for all of their hard work building up this important forum for contemporary Stoicism! Thanks to the members of the Stoicism Today project team for thought-provoking articles, organizing events and classes, and for invaluable advice! Thanks to all of the guest contributors who labored over their own posts, enriching the ongoing conversation of this forum!

A last set of thanks must go to all of you readers of this blog. We’re happy that Stoicism Today has drawn such a faithful and engaged audience over these last four years! Now, as we cross the threshold into a new year, we invite you to follow us over to the new site where Stoicism Today will continue to publish weekly posts for the modern Stoic community.

I’m glad the site is moving to new quarters. The old site has been sluggish for as long as I remember. I put that down to its hosting circumstances or to the particular WordPress template used, or both, and the Modern Stoicism site looks to be altogether more responsive. That’s great.

I have a few thoughts on the new site. I know everyone involved here is a busy professional with other things going on—as am I—so please take these suggestions in the spirit in which they’re offered. I’m trying to be helpful; I enjoy this forum and community, and I want to see it thrive.

-It looks as though there is still some branding work to be done—for clarity’s sake more than anything else. The site’s home page is bannered (as are most of its other pages) as “Stoic Week 2016” and should probably be “Modern Stoicism,” with the stoic week info relegated to a subordinate set of pages (not least because Stoic Week 2016 is now pretty old news). In fact, I don’t think the name “Modern Stoicism,” though it is the site’s domain name, appears in any banners on the site at all, and it should be the main thing we see.

-You all know your plans better than I do, but it seems to me a reorganization of the navigation, and re-branding via the page banners, would add some helpful clarity. I could see the top-level nav as consisting of HOME, EVENTS (which would lead to Stoic Week and Stoicon), SUPPORT, CONTACT, LOGIN. The home page could feature, as it does now, the latest blog post. Or you could put BLOG on the nav and make the home page a space for introductory info—“getting started with Stoicism” and the like. If you don’t like that idea, and you want to keep the home page for the blog, you should probably put a GETTING STARTED link in the main nav.

-I know you’ve got some commercial enterprises (the book, mainly) already out there under the name “Stoicism Today,” but I would consider dropping that name in favor of Modern Stoicism.

-Maybe the comment threads you mentioned are still to be imported, but a quick glance at the last few posts and their threads shows they’re not there yet. I’m going to transfer a couple of my recent ones over here—my recommendations for audio versions of our big three Stoic texts, and my defense of Jeeves!

Again, don’t take this critique in the wrong spirit. You’re all doing yeoman’s work, and it’s appreciated. I just have long experience in publishing, and I’m trying to be helpful.

A final note: I would like nothing better than to see the discussion forums blossom here. I’m not a facebook user, and I like the way the discussions at the Stoicism Today blog can be a little more expansive and thoughtful—avoiding, somewhat at least, the firehose-in-the-face quality of so many facebook exchanges.